


Undone

by wandsaway



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Divorce, Eventual Romance, F/M, Other, Quidditch, Relationship Problems, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 03:04:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11095560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wandsaway/pseuds/wandsaway
Summary: Hermione is going to crack. The pressure of a high-profile career, a marriage on the rocks, children to raise, and the ever-changing stress of spearheading a nationwide vaccine campaign is finally getting to her. And when she falls apart, who will put back the pieces?





	Undone

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my jenger and enniferfs for the beta!

Marriage was hard. They told you that, of course, whenever the topic came up, but it was almost an aside most of the time. In the face of dewy, starry-eyed witches eyeing dresses priced astronomically high, tittering discussions of upcoming intimacies took the place of real wisdom. Who would listen anyway, when they told you that life would make the love impossible if you let it? 

Hermione snapped herself out of her pitiful reverie, pointedly drawing her eyes away from the wedding picture that she kept in an uncharacteristically sparkly frame on her desk at work. After last night, the sappy look on their faces sort of turned her stomach; maybe that was the hangover. Hopefully that was the hangover. What kind of person felt nauseated looking at their wedding photo? The two black-and-white faces pulled away from their closed-eyed embrace in surprise when she tipped the frame over on her desk, letting it fall and half-hoping that the glass would crack and she’d have an excuse not to display it anymore. 

Once again she brought her attention back to the memo in front of her. You’re going to do work now, she told herself firmly, picturing a stern Professor McGonagall standing over her. Normally this motivational tactic brought out a touch of anxiety in her and made it easier for her to focus well. You’re going to stop dwelling on the stupid fight you had last night. Everyone has rough patches, everyone gets into fights. You’ve seen Ginny after she and Harry have gone at it; it’s not any different. 

She read about five lines of the recent notes on the international outbreak of dragon pox. It was incredibly frustrating; they’d nearly eradicated it before stories of side-effects began circulating. Started, by all things, by Witch Weekly getting an interview with a Muggle pseudoscientist about the impact of vaccines on children. The personal attacks had gotten quite nasty; Hermione Granger-Weasley was well known for spearheading the campaign for the inoculation of wizarding children using Muggle-developed methods. 

You’re never home, it’s always about everyone else but us! She could hear her husband’s voice echoing around their shining, summer-clean kitchen; the open windows let the curtains flap and snap around dramatically as the storm on the horizon rolled in over the sunset. The night should have been a pleasant one--they’d taken the children and eaten outside at the picnic table. Hermione had gotten off of work early and the weather had been almost fairytale pretty. 

The mar on the day was the near-palpable tension that wove its way into the stilted conversation. Even the children fell unusually quiet, looking critically between their father and mother and exchanging anxious, significant glances. At bedtime, Hermione had been afraid that Hugo was on the verge of asking questions that she didn’t want to have to answer--are you and Daddy mad at each other? Do you still love each other? He had the questioning look in his eye and took a sharp inhalation of breath right before she shut off his light--and then blew it out and rolled over in his bed, putting his back to her as she turned out the light. And rather than try to pry feelings out of her son and provide the guidance that was her moral duty, Hermione simply turned off a light and wished him a good night. 

The bone-deep guilt of motherhood added a fun bonus to the current life-encompassing clusterfuck.

The divorce rate in the wizarding world was dramatically low. Less than 3%, and a majority of those occurred in mixed-blood heritage marriages. It was a statistic that weighed on her heavily and again she let her head fall into her hands, digging the heel of her palm into her eyes until morphing neon fireworks broke up the blackness of her eyelids. 

It was only twenty after ten, but she stood up and grabbed her coat, deciding that she couldn’t take it anymore. She’d have to come back by two, and she had appointments all the way through six this evening. There was paperwork that would need to be filed before tomorrow; if she was lucky, she’d be home by eleven. 

It’s his turn to put them to bed tonight anyway! The thought rose in response to the unspoken accusation that came from the mental image of sneaking herself into the darkened home long after her children had been put to bed. Sometimes she’d find Ron sleeping on the couch in front of the TV, failed attempts to wait up for her. Sometimes the bedroom door was magically locked. She could have let herself in, but she always let the message stay and slept on the couch instead. 

Lately the locked door had been the more common scenario. Hermione tried hard not to think about what that meant. It doesn’t have to mean anything. We knew this would be hard. 

Her secretary gave her an unnecessarily scrutinizing look, and it made Hermione bristle. She stopped in the hallway bathroom and fixed her hair in the mirror--forcing it down into a tight, neat bun with a braid along her temple, helping her control some of the infamous volume that came from her curls. Looking like she had it together helped when everyone around her expected her to be falling apart. 

*** 

Hermione wasn’t even sure where she was going until she was there, opening the door to the Leaky Cauldron and blinking, startled by the sudden dim, dusty tavern after the unfairly bright summer day. She’d thought about getting coffee, maybe some breakfast food, trying to shake her funk and get some work done. Somewhere along the way she’d started ruminating again and gone on autopilot. 

Well, I can get food here! Again the voice she used in her head was whiny and defensive. 

You’re here for a drink. The truth was calm and quiet. She waited for a rational rebuttal and found none, only the emotional lurch at knowing she had reached a point in her life where she had started drinking at 10:45 in the morning. She didn’t like the way her heart felt lopsided in her chest, the way her mouth felt dry as she stepped up to the bar, the way she kept waiting for some semblance of sense to sink into her. Just one drink. You can still read about the efforts to deal with this outbreak and formulate a reasonable discussion of future epidemic management practices. You’ve spent your entire life coming to this point. You know what you’re doing. 

She had no idea what she was doing. Ron’s face swam before her, angry and red and advancing on her until she stumbled backwards, slamming her finger in the silverware drawer as he came nose-to-nose with her, his rage making her eardrums ring. 

Tom finished pouring for a customer sitting off at the bar near the wall, placing a bowl of hearty-looking, lumpy stew in front of the wizard to go with the dark, foamy ale. She made the snap decision to order food to go along with her drink--all the better to blend in, my dear--but before she could sit down, the stranger at the end of the bar called to her, and the awkward beating of her heart took on an entirely different rhythm. 

“Herm-own-ninny?” The voice was deep and accented, familiar to her across years of memory and recalled in years of long, rambling letters. 

“Viktor?!” She wished Tom hadn’t arched his eyebrow at the surprise in her voice; if she’d kept it together a little better, she might have been able to play off the chance encounter as a planned meeting. 

He smiled warmly and stood to greet her, embracing her in a warm and welcoming hug and then seizing her by the arms to hold her and get a good look at her. “I haven’t heard from you in many months. Have you been okay?” 

Viktor. She could feel the phantom Ron in her head inflating in fury; she’d thought that after some time and with lots of patience, Ron’s jealousy would begin to subside when it came to Krum, but despite being part of the spearhead to defeat Voldemort in the war, Ron still saw himself as inferior to the Eastern European Quidditch darling. It wasn’t particularly attractive.

“Viktor!” she forced her greeting to be light and cheery, shoving down everything else swirling inside of her. “Oh, busy. Busy, you know.” She forced another smile and she could feel the grim, wry smile that had started being the staple of the last few months. Viktor Krum probably had an intimate idea of what she was facing; he’d done a lot of the publicity for the magical vaccination movement in his part of the world. They, however, had made it a public program and were having incredible amounts of success. Between that and his influence on mixed-heritage orphanages...well, the legacy of Viktor Krum would be the kind of thing that made it into history books. 

That’s not the part that bothers you, Hermione told herself as she finally pulled away from Krum’s grasp. It bothers you that the things he’ll be remembered for aren’t steeped in bloodshed.

“You don’t look vell,” he said, his voice sinking and becoming apologetic. He took a small step backwards from her, a low blush in his cheeks revealing his awareness at their lingering, slightly inappropriate proximity. 

“It’s just been...a long year,” she said, picking the barstool two down from his so that there’d be a gap between them; she set her bag on it, knowing that there was no way she’d actually get any work done now, completely slaying all thoughts of being home before Ron should be in bed. 

“Yes, I’ve seen that some things have been … controversial.” He took a sip from his beverage and turned his intense gaze blessedly away from her to tuck into his stew. She gave her order to the bartender while he ate. 

“But what brings you into town? I didn’t know you were going to be around!” She brought the conversation back to something hopefully neutral and small-talk appropriate. 

“Yes, you did,” said Viktor, his eyebrows knitting together in the middle. “It is Harry’s birthday party tonight?” 

Her hand came to her mouth in an involuntary expression of the horror she felt at having forgotten. Suddenly the urgent paperwork in her briefcase seemed to be screaming with demands, like her children in their chaotic early months. How could she have forgotten? Not only could she not stay late at the office, she was supposed to be home early to get the children secure with the babysitter and join Ron for a few pre-party drinks, a pathetic attempt at reestablishing the connection between them. She immediately began forming alternate plans in her mind...if she could get Fleur to go to the house and check up on the kids, they’d be alright for the babysitter...maybe she could get Ron to join her after the party and she could skip drinks with him and cocktail hour at the hoity-toity dinner party she was sure that Harry was going to hate…

“You haven’t forgotten?” prompted Krum. 

“Actually, I think I did,” said Hermione, her voice becoming involuntarily shrill. This was actually it, the metaphorical straw that broke her multitasking back, and she started crying, chewing on her bottom lip so hard that she drew a little bit of blood. Wouldn’t that be fun trying to disguise with makeup later? “It’s just been a lot.” She couldn’t stand the desperation, the pure breakdown that was happening, but when she tried to take a deeper breath, she completely lost it and started sobbing loudly, complete with hitching breath and running nose. 

“You need some privacy and a break and a drink,” Viktor said firmly, standing up and securing a key from Tom the barman, leading Hermione up by her elbow. The room was small and dim but Hermione gratefully flung herself on the bed and continued to cry. She was thankful that the Leaky Cauldron was just seedy enough to avoid most of the white collar gossip mill. It was unlikely--although not impossible--that she’d have to explain her public breakdown and subsequent comforting by none other than Viktor Krum. 

The thought of having to explain this to Ron made her cry harder, because she should be able to tell him in detail about how stuck she felt and how impossible life felt. Wasn’t he supposed to be the one helping her through, not the one making it harder? Shouldn’t he be the one offering her the fortification to forge on with what she truly believed was right? It all poured from her in a childish fit of emotion, her crying so loud that it was annoying even in her own ears and she was somehow helpless to get it under control. She cried until her eyes were dry and until the pillow beneath her had a comic wet-print of her exaggeratedly frowning mouth. She cried until all that was left were pathetic, intermittent hiccups. 

 

***

When she finally sat up, Viktor was sitting at the plain, hard-backed wooden chair that went with the dented and dinged writing desk. There was a tray with an unopened bottle of firewhiskey, a mixer, and a bucket of ice. Two glasses, waiting for contents. 

“Ready for a drink?” he asked, his voice stiff. He was obviously concerned, but she would never expect him to come over and touch her reassuringly. She cleaned her face with her handkerchief and then magicked it clean before shoving it back in her pocket. She’d have to deal with the aftermath in the mirror before she headed back to the office. He poured her a drink that was heavy on the whisky, light on the ice and mixer, and she took her first few swallows too large and too hard, the burn in her throat and stomach bordering on unpleasant. 

“I’m so sorry,” said Hermione, staring down at the light reflecting in the ice and surface of her drink. “I don’t normally--just a lot at once. And I’ve been very tired.” 

Tired. The ultimate excuse--depressed, anxious, overwhelmed, uncertain, falling apart--but tired was so much more acceptable than all of that. 

“I do not think that you are tired because you are not sleeping vell,” he said. His tone was quite neutral, but he sipped at his own drink at a much more reasonable pace. “You are trying to do too much, ‘Er-My-Nee.” 

*** 

Thank God they’re old enough to play on their own, Ron thought. He officially hated summer vacation. He’d sent the nanny--a sweet 6th year Hogwarts student that lived down the road and helped the Granger-Weasleys during school holidays--home for the day. He knew Harry’d cover for him at the office, and Hermione wouldn’t even notice that he wasn’t there. He was already making bets with himself about whether or not she’d forget their plans for the evening. 

“STOP HITTING ME!” Rose was screaming and Hugo was laughing, no doubt purposely antagonizing his sister out of boredom. He groaned and thought about pulling himself from bed and actually participating in fatherhood; after all, hadn’t he convinced himself that it was okay to stay home on the basis that at least one of their parents needed to be more involved? His head pounded and his mouth tasted like sand. If he could convince himself to get out of bed, he could fix himself a hangover cure and be up to snuff in no time. It was the getting up that was the problem. 

His mouth tasted like sand. 

It was the shocking, mortifying realization that he had pissed himself at some point in the night that finally pulled him from bed. He knocked over the remnants of the cheap vodka he’d been drinking straight the previous night, which didn’t do the odor of the room any favors. He stripped himself and the bed before throwing on his bathrobe and heading to the shower, leaving the bedding and his jeans in a ball by the door. He could take them downstairs to wash when he went down for the hangover cure. 

There’s a reason they call it being piss drunk, he thought. He could hear Fred echoing the sentiment more than a few times throughout their adolescence; he’d been kind of known for it in the Hogwarts dormitories, especially after Quidditch match celebrations. Still, it wasn’t something he wanted Hugo and Rose walking in on. It was bad enough that both he and Hermione had been wrapped up in their own drama. Between that and the unending demands of maintaining the facade that had become their substitute for real life, it felt like things had gotten comically bad. Hiding it from the kids (to the best of their ability) was the least they could do until they got their shit together. 

The shower was hot enough to make his skin bright and red. He washed quickly and rinsed his mouth out. Jeans. Comfortable t-shirt. Socks that matched. He even ran the brush through his hair and when he looked in the mirror, he didn’t think you could tell that he’d been (quite literally) piss drunk the night before. 

Maybe he’d better take it easy tonight when he went out with Hermione. 

If Hermione remembered that they were supposed to go out. 

The children’s squabbling had increased in volume and drama while he was showering. Unfortunately for them, they crossed paths before Ron made it to the cupboard where he kept his little stash of hangover cure. 

“WILL YOU TWO CUT IT OUT?” he roared, then immediately regretted it when they flinched away from him and ran out of their back door, letting the storm door slam behind them as they disappeared into the woods near their home. 

Of course, he thought bitterly. And now I won’t see them for hours unless I go looking for them, so I really can’t justify having stayed home. 

Wasn’t it just how everything was going for them lately?


End file.
